Soldiers of Fortune
by Anna Skyfox
Summary: A very memorable Christmas at the Potters.


Something was wrong. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I could smell it on the air, swirling with the scent of ice and wood smoke and pine- smells of Christmas. The stars were clear, in that piercing way they only are in winter, like the sky was about to break open. It was snowfall quiet. But something was crawling up my back, making my hair stand on end, some sense of foreboding. It made my eyes itch. Clenching the cigarette between my teeth, I took off my glasses with one hand and shoved my fingers over my eyes with the other.

I'd had this feeling all day. I desperately wanted to forget it and go to sleep. It was very early Christmas Eve morning. I didn't want to be tired for Christmas Eve. I loved Christmas Eve. I turned into a child for Christmas Eve, which was always a far bigger deal in the Potter household than Christmas Day. I loved everything about Christmas. I loved the lights and the music and the smells and bounding around the house with tinsel in my hair singing scandalous versions of Christmas carols until my mother blushed. I should have been asleep dreaming of fairies and sugar plumbs and shit, like a normal kid.

But something was wrong. My bones ached with it. I balanced my glasses over one knee and brought the cigarette again to my lips. The smoke gathered on the underside of my fingers, which pinched fiercely at the bridge of my nose.

It was so quiet.

I lifted my head, staring out at the blurry undistinguishable lines of black and white stretching to the hills. From the ledge of my bedroom window where I was perched, I could have seen out over the tree line, had I been able to see. I left my glasses off, taking in the muted empty unmarred white of the long snow covered lawn, barely broken by the frozen line of the river running along the edge of the property. As I watched, the white expanse flickered with a small movement where the forest met the river. I squinted into the night. It looked like it could maybe be an animal, but I couldn't distinguish it past a dark smudge marring the canvas of white without my glasses.

I slipped them back on and frowned at the figure that clarified in the distance. It was a human, or humanish, moving awkwardly in strange jerks. Warning bells started to chime adamantly in my head. It was late. No one should be out in the forest at that time of night.

As I watched, the figure stumbled and pitched forward. I squinted again, trying to discern some details. As I watched the body heaved with what looked like racking coughs, or gagging, or sobbing, on the ground. There was something familiar about the silhouette. It was just as that thought entered my head that a very familiar voice materialized like crystal in my mind, cracking and desperate.

"James," it pleaded, and the cigarette in my fingers shot out into the night.

"Oh, fuck," I whispered, and the next second I was scrambling back through the window.

My stocking feet pounded across the floor and down the stairs. I hooked a hand around the end of the banister and skidded on the hard wood floor, something I'd been doing since I was six, around the corner. Mum and Dad were in the living room arranging towers of immaculately wrapped presents in cascades under the tree.

"James? What in hell-?" Dad's voice drifted away unheeded as I shot past. Throwing the door open so hard that it groaned in protest, I snatched a cloak from the hat rack as I threw myself outside. The rack clattered to the floor loudly behind me, but I kept running, barely feeling the frigid snow soaking through my socks, my feet leaving dark messy holes in the virgin snow.

He was on his feet again, one hand clasped against his opposite side. His dark hair was falling in limp ragged strands around his face as he staggered forward. A thick wool cloak, elaborately embroidered black on gray, hung from his shoulders, but I could see, as I got closer, that he was shaking violently.

He looked up when he heard my frantic footsteps crunching in the snow. The moonlight illuminated the vividly multicolored mess of his face. His eyes were wide and terrified, something I'd never seen in them before. Only one of them retained their natural sterling gray, though it was stained underneath with bruises that were dark purple and bright blue and scarlet in the moonlight. The other was shot through with bloody red blotches so that the iris was almost invisible. His lip was split open and there was a long gash running from near his right temple along the bone of his eye socket and over his cheek. A wide smear of blood, like a brush stroke, streaked back from it into his dark hair.

"Sirius!" his name tore from my throat and carried away on the wind. I was ten feet from him and he held himself up, seemingly by sheer force of will, until I had closed the distance between us. Then he pitched forward again into my outstretched arms. I shifted my hands to secure my grip and they came away bright red.

"Mum!" my scream echoed across the frozen night. There was a moment in which all I heard was Sirius' ragged breathing, which vaguely resembled a dying animal dragging itself across gravel. Two sharp pops split the air and my father and mother were both at my side.

"Jesus Christ," Dad's voice was uncharacteristically rough with shock and barely concealed rage. Mum took one look at Sirius, seized him by the arm and apparated them both into the house. My eyes turned up to my father's, which were hard and cold. He took my arm and a second later we were in the living room beside them.

Mum had Sirius sprawled half way onto the couch, deep gasps and protests seeming to rend him in two. His face was contorted with pain, at least what I could see of it behind the kaleidoscope of bruises covering his handsome features. I pulled away from my father and crossed the room. Seizing Sirius' knees, I eased them up onto the cushions. Lines of rambling and incoherence answered the movement.

"James," he murmured.

"I'm right here, Sirius."

Mum had her wand out and was muttering words rapidly that I couldn't understand. Sirius twisted and cried out.

"James," Mum didn't look at me as she spoke, her eyes flicking between Sirius and her wand. "Get a pain draught. And a calming draught. Quickly."

Her voice was sharp, but I was spinning on my heel and sprinting to the kitchen. My father had a thick flannel blanket in his hands and was draping it over Sirius' shivering body.

I tore the cabinet open, and began shoving through the bottles. My pulse was thrumming loudly in my ears and I could feel it wedged in my throat. I spotted a bruise salve and grabbed that too, heading back to the living room with laden arms. I dumped the contents out onto the coffee table. Snatching up the pain draught and uncorking it, I moved to the end of the couch near Sirius' head.

"Come on, Sirius. You have to drink this," I held it in front of his lips.

"James . . . "

"I'm here. Just drink this."

"I'm sorry . . ."

"It's ok, Padfoot. Just drink this, alright?"

My hand slipped behind his head and lifted carefully, so many nights of caring for Moony after a full moon going to work. Somehow I'd never thought I would be using these skills on Sirius. Mum's eyes flashed up to me.

"This is going to hurt," she said softly. I wasn't sure if she was speaking to me or to my best friend, but I nodded anyway. Easing Sirius' head back down to the arm of the sofa, I gripped his shoulder tightly. There was a sharp amazing crack and a single pitiful sob broke from his lips.

"The ribs are healed," Mum said, "There will still be bruising, but the breaks are mended." I tried not to flinch at the words. She twisted and plucked a small green vial from the mess on the table.

"Sirius, love," she leaned over him, smoothing his black hair from his face with a flat hand. "You're going to be alright. You're safe now. Do you understand?"

Sirius' eyes were wide open and feverishly bright.

"No," his words strung together, slurring thickly. "No. You don't understand."

"Sirius, try to calm down."

He jerked violently under my hand, grabbing Mum's elbow so hard she winced.

"You **don't **under**stand**!" Through the drunken quality of his speech, I could hear the urgency. "They'll come after me. You have to ward the house. You have to-"

Dad's dark shadow fell over Sirius' face and his huge hand descended to Sirius' high-sculpted cheek.

"I will, son," Dad said, "I understand."

Sirius eyes were rapt on him, and Dad turned abruptly and headed out the front door. Sirius watched him the whole way.

"Take this," my mother uncorked the green bottle and held it to Sirius' lips. He lifted a hand gingerly and wrapped his long fingers around it. Closing his eyes, he downed it in one gulp.

"You're going to be ok," I said next to Sirius' ear. "I promise, Padfoot. You're going to be alright."

I watched the lines ease slightly off his face and an enormous sense of helplessness seized me. Mum was handing him another bottle, which he took dazedly and drank obediently. His eyelids sank shut almost immediately. Mum studied his face before leaning back slightly.

"Good God," she said softly, "Poor child."

I didn't look at her, but when my father came in the door again, I stood slowly, leaning one hand heavily on the back of the sofa. My heart still felt swollen as I gazed down at the boy lying on the couch below me.

"James. Do you know what happened?" Dad was calm, his tone even.

"I think it's obvious, isn't it?" I said to Sirius' unconscious face, "It must have been his parents. Or one of them, at least, but my money's on both."

"That's not what I mean, James."

I knew that. And I had a pretty good idea what must have been the catalyst for the level of rage evident in Sirius' condition. His words from a few months ago came back to me, words spoken with eerie calm after an equally matter of fact confession which I had long suspected.

"If my family knew, they'd kill me," he'd said, "No question. Literally. They would kill me."

And he had meant it.

I bit my lip.

"James," Mum was watching me with fiery hazel eyes.

"I . . . " I faltered, looking between my parents, feeling like I was pleading. "You'll have to ask him," I said firmly. "It's his choice whether he talks about it or not. It's not my story to tell."

A long contemplative silence swirled through the air. Finally, my father nodded once and then sunk down on the end of the sofa. He lifted Sirius' feet gently so that they rested in his lap.

"He's not going back there," Mum said suddenly, her eyes fixed intensely on Dad, blond strands of hair pulled loose from her ponytail hanging like Medusa's snakes around her face. Dad shook his head, his hand wrapping absently around Sirius' ankle.

"He's been under the cruciatus curse," she continued.

"I know," Dad said wearily, his hand rubbing slowly over his eyes.

"What?" it exploded out of me and Sirius stirred ever so slightly. "Bloody fucking-"

"James," Mum's tone was a warning.

"But you're saying they-"

"I know, James, but please . . . It won't help Sirius if you're hysterical."

"But . . the cruciatus curse? Someone bloody well should be hysterical," I was fuming, but she was right, and I lowered my voice and gritted my teeth. I looked down again at my sleeping friend.

"He still looks . . . scared," I said weakly. I had trouble voicing the word in relation to Sirius. He was my fearless partner in crime. It wasn't right.

Mum's touch on my hand was cool and soft.

"It's part of the side effects of the cruciatus. He's in shock. And in pain. He will be for a while. We're only guessing at all of what he's been through. You have to be brave, and patient, love. I know that the latter is not one of your strong suits."

I smiled in spite of myself as I brushed my fingers over Sirius' hair.

"But he won't go back?" I asked and my voice sounded very small.

"No." My father's voice, by contrast, was inarguable and decisive. "He's not going back to that house."

"No matter what?"

"No matter what, love," Mum said, "We'll take care of it."

I nodded again, slowly. A stinging blurring sensation in my eyes made it hard to see. I cleared my throat.

"I need to owl Remus," I said, turning mechanically.

"James, it's three in the morning."

"He'll want to know," I said insistently, "He might know already. I . . . "

I hesitated, that uneasy feeling I'd had all day sitting oddly in my stomach. I was quite certain Moony would know something happened. I was also quite certain that the lack of details would be currently driving him straight out of his mind.

"Peter can wait until tomorrow," I said, "but I have owl Moony tonight."

My parents hesitated only for a second.

"Alright. If you're sure."

I turned without answering. Casting one last look over my shoulder at Sirius, I left him under my parents' watchful eyes, and headed upstairs to write a letter.


End file.
